Typhoon Yolanda Fund Update

A year after Typhoon Yolanda lashed the central islands of the Philippines, we reflected on the fundraising that we organised at BSM and the impact that we have been able to make with that money. In total, with donations from the BSM community together with funds that were raised by students at 19 international schools who partnered with us for this effort, we raised 5.8 million pesos ($130,000).

Leyte and various locations - support to families of BSM staff who lost housese and livelihoods

Sophia Perrett, one of the members of the BSM Red Cross Youth Committee who were very involved in fundraising, selecting projects to fund and then monitoring them, told me: ‘Decisions on how to spend the funds raised were made by us students. We funded emergency relief supplies, projects that rebuilt houses and schools, and we were also able to help out those members of the BSM staff who had families living in Visayas who had been affected. It was a considerable responsibility spending this amount of money in a fully accountable way and also in a timely manner, but we managed to find some great projects to support.’

The largest project that we funded was the rebuilding of 100 houses in Daanbantayan, northern Cebu. The pictures below give an idea of the impact that your fundraising has been able to achieve.

This is a picture of the home of Nanay Lucia Barrioquinto in Daanbantayan, northern Cebu, after the typhoon. She lives with her son and daughter in law and three children. She had patched it up a bit with the remains of her previous home and some plastic sheeting, but it is not a home for a family and would not survive another storm.

Here is her house today, thanks to your donations and the work of the Springboard Foundation who implemented this project for us. And there are 99 other houses there that you funded. The statistics of the householders are still shocking – most have monthly incomes of 2-3000 pesos, and some lost their livelihoods with the storm, so that is still an area that we want to keep supporting. We will fund some livelihood projects for these families – vegetable gardens, poultry projects and some motorbike trikes that are used as taxis. Hopefully these will really give the families a hand up.

Here is another picture that tells a story – the group of year 9s and 10s who went down to Daanbantayan last June to help paint up a few of the houses. Murelle Garrigos, a Year 12 student who is President of the BSM Red Cross Youth Committee said: ‘Even though we are young, we can still play an active role in making a difference if we really want to.’